quick kisses behind cigarette smoke
by Masquerading with Shadows
Summary: Let's build something and we'll tear it down. Beck/Jade.


.

Their downfall starts at _hello_.

.

Their first date is the week after Valentine's Day, and she notices that the pavement towards the pizza parlour is scattered with dying rose petals, the remnants of rain washing them into the gutter. She smiles, her hands stuck in her pockets, and kicks some more onto the street.

"Now, now, Miss West, that is a violation against innocent flowers," Beck says, gently moving her to the right of him instead of the left. He forgets to drop one of his arms from her shoulder. "Please, control your anger."

"I'm sure whoever threw them _on the street _would have been happy with what I just did," she replies, elbowing him in the chest and smirking at the puff of air that leaves him. His grip on her shoulder only tightens. "They're just the sad memories of a relationship."

He's silent for quite awhile, his pace slowing only for her to begin dragging him along again. She keeps her eyes on the drying pavement, small amounts of steam wisping into the air. She's so distracted that she walks past their - her - destination, and she glares at him when he smirks at her. Another pause, his face softening, and he opens the door for her.

"Well, if that's," he gestures to the street. "just the sad memories of a past relationship, here's to the beginning of -"

"Just another thing that will end," she finishes for him. "Soon." She walks past him briskly, and seats herself in the window seat before the waiters can stop her.

"I love how your so certain of everything," Beck tells her when he finally sits himself down. "But you're wrong." She kicks him, he winces.

On the way back, he holds her hand from inside her coat.

.

Their thighs brush between the sheets, cotton and firm skin mixing and sending chills up her spine, nails leaving creases and her weight denting the mattress. She breathes, in, out, and her heart slows, only for him to lean over and kiss her again.

She's not used to it yet; the warmth from his lips to hers, an overwhelming _rush_ - her heartbeat, her lips, the forever changing colours behind her eyelids, a sense that travels through out her, and something she can't quite remember that steadily beats at the back of her head.

She finally gasps for air, and pushes him back a little too roughly, though he just lands on his side and smiles at her. She doesn't look at him, tries to catch her breath, though she doesn't know what it's from. His finger starts to travel up and down her arm, drawing patterns on her skin.

She moves quickly after that, her eyes on the floor, on her hands as they pull her panties back up her legs. The bed shifts from under her slightly, and she can feel a gaze drifting over her back.

"You can stay," he tells her happily. She glances over her shoulder at him. Propped up on one arm, he has a lazy smile on his face, and bright eyes that she can't quite look at. She quickly looks away, back at her hands that are resting on her thighs. She sighs, making sure that it sounds exasperated, and starts to pull her shirt over her head.

"I should go," she replies, getting up and running a hand through her hair.

"Oh," she hears him say. An uncomfortable silence falls between them, only broken by the sound of denim on her skin.

"Call me," she tells him finally as she heads towards the door. "And I'll see you on Tuesday." He smirks at her.

"What happened to school on Monday?" She raises one eyebrow.

"Point taken," he says. "Tuesday, then. Ok."

.

It's too slow to begin with, and then it's too quick and a mass of contradictions that is too big for her or him to figure out. But - after awhile, they get used to it, the chaos that is them. It's never quite normal, never quite perfect, but it's at the right pace now; a quick kiss and a slow hug; a lazy grip on her hip and a tight one on his fingers that nearly cuts off his circulation.

After six months, she's still learning him. It's not instant, like she'd thought it be. It was easier to fall into the physical, the bruises and the red skin than the words. So she learns him: the way he smiles, the way he speaks, the way he always has just one cigarette before an audition, even if it's just for the school play and Lane has already caught him twice.

The way he feels starts to feel familiar too, from his oldest flannels to his newest jeans, soft and rough all in one. His skin, warm and soft, always more so in the morning when she wakes up in his arms, her breathing too slow for her liking, blood pumping through her veins heavily.

She knows everything about him, she decides with confidence, and he thinks that sometimes, maybe, he could say the same.

(She likes a lot about him too, but she won't say that.)

.

"I'll never leave you," he promises her. There are tears prickling at her eyes, but she blames them on her digging her nails into her palms, the pain barely there, like her nerves are too num to feel anything.

(_Stupid. Fucking. Tori. Vega._)

He hugs her to his chest before she can refuse, and then she's kissing him, harsh but familiar all the same. Her tongue against his, the way their hips clash together through their jeans, she loves it, most of the time.

He presses her up against the wall, a leg between her thighs as his hands start to push her t-shirt up. He starts to such a mark into her neck, while she brands him as hers with her fingernails up his sides, on his back.

"I love you," he says, already breathless. "Remember that. _I love you_."

She nods out of reflex, kisses him and starts to unbutton his t-shirt, while he finally gets the t-shirt over her head, only breaking the kiss for a second. He manages to crush himself against her even further, and she's positive she can feel every part of his body, from his skin to his bones to his heart. She kisses him even harder, but suddenly, he slows, before he breaks the kiss, and completely stops.

"Jade," he whispers, his mouth right next to his ear. "Say it, say it back." His nose bumps against hers when she shakes her head, and his grip on her hips slackens until she can barely feel his fingers pressing through her jeans. Still, he kisses her forehead, letting out a breath as he does so.

"How about," she starts, pressing her head against his collar bone. "I say that I'll stay with you for as long as I can?" She can hear the smile in his voice when he replies,

"Then I'd tell you I loved you."

She already knew that.

.

(Sometimes, like that night, they don't end up having sex. She just stays the night, and goes to school in the same t-shirt and jeans she left, usually just with an addition of Beck's shirts.

Other times, she stays for most of it, but goes when the sun starts to rise, coming through his bullet-proof windows and turning his skin golden, the skin on his eyes almost see through.

But sometimes, they just spend the whole night not saying a word, or maybe saying too many. Most of the time, though, he says I love you.)

.

After high school, he moves his RV into an apartment car park, because while they couldn't afford an apartment, it's closer to their work, and it's still their home. No one seems to care, anyway.

"I miss the sky," Jade says one day, lying on Beck's bed upside down, her hair touching the floor. The bed squeaks, and soon Beck is on his stomach next to her, their thighs touching.

"I suggest you look out the window, rather than the ceiling, then," he offers. She rolls her eyes at him, and kicks his leg which he then takes to mean it's the beginning of a footwar.

"Stop it, you moron!" she replies, kicking back. "Ugh."

"You love it, and you know it. Come on, it's fun," Beck says, still smiling.

"Since when did I like fun?" she asks him. "And with your earlier statement, I _can_ see the sky from here. There's window over there." Finally, Beck's foot stops, and he tilts his head towards her gaze, before finally rolling over onto his back.

"Ok, you're right," he says. "But the sky is still there, you know. It hasn't fallen."

"What a pity," she mutters. "You can only see skyscrapers, though. I liked the stars."

"Isn't that the irony of Hollywood?" he asks her. "That you're surrounded by stars, you can touch one, but you can't ever see one properly. The ones that shine."

"That's from one of your scripts, isn't it?" she sighs. He looks at her sheepishly.

"Possibly," he answers. "How about, when I'm rich, famous, and even hotter than I am now, I'll buy us the best room on top of a really tall skyscraper, just so you can see the stars?" He smiles gently at her, entwines their fingers, and brings back that feeling; like liquid gold is running through her veins. She should be used to it know, she thinks.

"Ok," she says. "But now what?"

"You kiss me," he says.

She does, but only because she wants to.

.

Fame is in Beck's veins, she decides. Just like the huge, blinding city lights that shine in his eyes. He gets a lead role in his third audition in a month, and it's without a call back. She, on the other hand, only gets into one independent film, and is the understudy for a Broadway that plays once a week.

She doesn't quite mind though, not yet. She knows that she has to work to get the top, she always has. The words and the actions come quickly to her, but the success doesn't.

Beck's filming goes by in a flash, just like him. Soon, she's draped over his arm at the premiere, a secretive smirk shot over her shoulder at the girls peering at him. She fists her hand in his jacket, and leans up to kiss him on the corner of his mouth. A camera clicks somewhere in the sea of people, but they both just smirk.

"I'll always love you best," he whispers suddenly, his hands on her hips as she steals his show.

"You're not suppose to love anybody else," she says back to him. Her lipstick is staining his mouth; it suits him.

"True," he says. "And I won't."

"Of course, you'll never forget me." He just nods, waves, and takes her inside.

.

He doesn't - but the tabloids do. There's only ever one, maybe two pictures of her, sharing a cigarette outside with him, wearing one of his shirts. They spell her name wrong, each and every time,

_Beck and Jane._

She chars the magazine with her lighter, until it's black and unreadable, and throws it in the trash before he can see it.

.

She kisses him, too hard and too soft, deliberately digging her nails into his hips. She wants to feel something, more than the feel of skin, less than the warmth of their bodies together. She thinks that something's different this time, though the mechanic movement of their bodies is exactly the same; from the way he holds her hips, balancing her on top of his, the way her hands claw their way to his hair, his fingertips sliding into her jeans, it's all familiar.

But now, her skin seems hypersensitive to his touch. It's like the jolt of a memory as you travel up a forgotten road. She maps out her territory with her tongue, making sure that she remembers every inch, the feel of it against hers. When he enters her, she holds his hand, kisses him in rhythm with him.

He lays her down on the bed, kisses her softly, and pulls her into his arms. She falls asleep in one, two, three blinks.

.

He tells her he loves her.

She doesn't look at him, not once.

.

(Here's a secret that you may not know:

The night that Jade tells Beck she loves him, he takes a sleeping tablet, kisses her on the cheek, and goes to bed. He doesn't fall asleep for hours though, and neither does she when she finally joins him, the smell of smoke and gin on her lips. He holds her hand, whispers,

"Never let go." and only falls asleep when she kisses him on the forehead.

He wakes up to an empty bed, no note and only one of her red lipsticks to remember him by. He's not surprised, but he waits for her anyway.)

.

She only moves to New York at first. Stays there for two months, tries to blend in with the crowd; wears tall, black high heels, designer jeans, lives the fashionable lifestyle without any of the money. Tries Broadway again and auditions for films. So she sings, acts, tries to rebuild the life that she never quite had back in Hollywood.

She leaves again when her pay cheque comes through, though. Buys a bus ticket, changes at each bus stop, and falls asleep on one that somehow takes her to Boston. She only stays one week there before she's on a bus that takes her to the airport at four in the morning, staining the window with cigarette smoke.

She doesn't even register where she's going until they land. She doesn't care either. She just grabs her bags, smiles at the skyscrapers, and waits to see the stars.

.

She never changes her number or her phone, so all her numbers are faded and Beck can still call her. She never answers, never send him a text or a message. But she listens to his messages sometimes, spread out on her motel room with a haze of alcohol and permanent jetlag surrounding her.

She listens to make sure that his voice never changes, while his face gets _just a little bit _thinner, and his eyes get a little bit duller, his voice holds the same qualities that it has ever since she met him. She falls asleep to its buzz most nights, a repeated i love you still ringing in her ears.

The next morning, she wakes up to her phone ringing.

She doesn't answer it.

.

Sometimes, when she's on a plane, she looks out the window and sees the wing of the plane. It's then that she always gets the urge to fly bubble up inside her, to sit on the wing and feel the wind in her hair, on her neck, on her lips. To defy each and every rule of science and gravity.

She gets a thrill each time there's turbulence, when she can feel the air beneath the plane. She loves that feeling, the rush of adrenaline.

(But she thinks that maybe, the closest she ever came to flying was when she was with Beck.

It's just a thought.)

.

When she lands in California, she buys a map, traces the roads and the train tracks with her fingers and recites the words in her mind. She's so busy remembering, re-learning (and trying to forget it all once again - shit, shit, _fuck_ she didn't mean to come here, didn't want this at all) that she misses her stop.

She feels almost childish and she crosses the road, walking slowly over the zebra crossing, only stepping on the white. To be honest, she doesn't quite know where she's going, though somewhere in the back of her mind she registers that it's downtown, and the buildings are just a little shorter here than they were a block ago.

She walks for twenty minutes just following the cracks in the pavement, watching her shoes follow each other, unaware of anything else around her. Even with the cars and the people rushing around her, she still feels like she's alone in her head, that it's quiet. Just her and a darkening sky filled with dim stars.

She starts to list all the things she hasn't done in her head: she hasn't booked a hotel, hasn't bought another plane ticket, hasn't had a job in over four months, and she's running out of money fast. Slowly, the voices in her head start to get louder and louder, until she's fisting her hands together in her pockets.

Without warning, there's a gentle touch on her arm, and the voices stop. She turns around unwillingly, a feeling of both dread and happiness sinking to the bottom of her stomach. She bites her lip, and looks up, only to be pulled to his chest.

"Why do I always find you when I stop looking?" Beck asks her. His t-shirt muffles her words, so she doesn't speak, just holds onto him tightly and doesn't object when he takes her back to his apartment ("the RV's still in the car park," he tells her. "I just couldn't live there without you, so I bought this place.").

He stays up with her as she watches the rain start to fall on his window, all night.

.

They don't have sex immediately, don't even kiss immediately. For the first day, he just stays by her side and holds onto her hand too tightly, leaving white marks that fade and turn pink. She doesn't mind at all, she may have even missed it while she was away. She's not sure.

She kisses him when the rain finally stops, right up against the window for anyone and everyone to see. She gives in, tightens her hands in his hair and tries to forget that she fucked everything up, that time and change fucked them up. She thinks that maybe she tastes of chaos, or maybe that's just what they taste like together, she doesn't know - she's forgotten.

"I missed you," he says, looking at the TV. She's sitting on his thighs, her arms resting on her knees.

"Me too," she says quietly. He smiles out of the corner of her eye. She just looks at her jeans.

.

Beck lends her his agent, and the first audition she tries out for, she gets (and he just winks at her from the sidelines, and her grip on the phone gets a little bit tighter). She wants to make all of it work, Beck&Jade and her name in shining lights.

Each morning, she practises her lines, says goodbye to Beck and goes to filming. She goes home, smokes a cigarette after cigarette while Beck looks at her, tries to calm her breathing down.

The pattern repeats. She wonders if she should go.

(He whispers stay in her ear. For once, she does as she's told.)

.

He kisses her at the most random times: when she wakes up, when she's just put her lipstick on and then has to re-apply it, when she slips her shirt over her head and is just starting to get into her pyjamas.

"I love you," he says.

"I know," she answers. He opens his mouth, takes hold of her hand in a tight grip, closes it again without a word.

"Goodnight, Beck," she says.

He nods, doesn't let go for another five beats of her heart.

"Night," he says finally. She tries to smile

- it probably falls short. But only just.

.

Her movie is a hit. Sometimes, the paparazzi take shots of her when she's by herself, without Beck (but that doesn't happen very often). She sees her name printed on glossed magazine pages, shining in the light, and smiles to herself.

"We're famous," she says one day, glancing over at Beck as he makes himself a coffee. He smiles at her.

"Well, yes," he says. "We've been in big movies and -"

"That's not what I meant," she interrupts. "I mean, _us_, together, we're famous." He seems to consider this for awhile, letting a not entirely comfortable pause settle between them. She begins to drum her fingers against his leather lounge.

"I suppose we are," he says finally. "Do you mind?" A

"No," she answers. Her hands fumble as she tries to light a cigarette. A flicker, and then there's a glow.

"You're an actress," Beck tells her, looking over the lounge. "Which also means you're a liar." He reaches down and steals her cigarette, takes a drag and blows it out.

"Sometimes I tell the truth," she says. "And I say that I like us." His smile returns - she forgot that it left.

"Good," he says. "I do too." He kisses her on the top of her head. She only bites her lip, and looks out the window, putting the lighter back in her pocket.

.

She's still on his arm when the premiere of his next movie comes around. It's all routine now, the flashing of the camera no longer blinds her eyes, the high heels no longer cut into her skin as much as they did, and wearing a dress is just one of those little things Beck asks her to do.

Besides, it's good for her career.

For most of it, she just smiles for the camera, hums a song that she thinks she's heard once or twice before under her breath to block out the cheering fans, the screams of glee that make her shudder. She strokes a thumb over Beck's hand, and his smile grows wider.

For the premiere itself, she seats herself down, grabs a glass of champagne and crosses one of her legs over the other, frowning when her skin starts to stick together. She smiles at everybody she needs to, taps her fingers on the arm of her chair as she waits for Beck to come and get her. When she finally looks over at Beck to see what's taking him so long, she gets out another cigarette and lights it right there, breathing smoke into anyone's face if they look at her a different way.

She places her champagne glass by her feet, and finally works over to him, placing her hand on his shoulder and smiling at the girl he's with. He digs his hands into his pockets and quickly looks at his feet; her grip on his arm tightens.

"So, um, I'll call you later," the girl says. Beck just nods, and gives her a quick smile, which widens when the girl gives a chaste kiss to his cheek. Only Jade sees the knowing wink she gives him.

"Jade," Beck sighs. She doesn't stay, only walks away from him as fast as she can, knocking over a champagne glass and treading on it, hearing the sharp sound it makes as the stem breaks. She doesn't stop.

He still runs after her, just like always. She's already up to his (their) apartment when he does. She jumps when she hears the door slam after him.

"This is ridiculous," he states behind her. She turns around quickly, folds her arms over her chest and glares at him.

"What?" she says. "Are you bored with me, is that it?" He sighs heavily, and she sees his jaw tighten.

"Why would I be bored with you when I just got you back?" he asks her seriously. She stays silent. "Dear god, Jade, things like that, they never mean anything." He runs a hand through his hair.

"Say it," he says finally. "Say it to my face."

"What?" she says (and this isn't how it goes, he doesn't ask questions, he doesn't get bored with this, with them).

"Just say it to me fucking face - say that you hate me," he says simply. "And then I can apologise, and then we can be done." Her eyes flicker to her shoes, and she's sure she can see glass glinting in them, hears the crack all over again. She shakes her head.

"I hate you," he says, and it's just like old times. Except it's not, now, because he looks older, and she's different, and she can't quite grasp anything anymore, not even Beck.

"Well, I don't," she tells him. "I just don't care anymore." She sounds defeated, too tired for her own good. But something sparks, or maybe shatters, or maybe even gets locked down, inside her when she sees his face fall, and his heart break.

"At least," he starts, softer than she's ever heard him before. "I get to say goodbye this time."

He looks up, and then he leaves.

.

She re-packs her bags, that she doesn't think they were ever really unpacked to begin with. It takes her only twenty minutes to get all her things, and then she leaves, presses a kiss to his window and makes sure she stains it, so that he won't forget her.

She doesn't say goodbye, but she thinks she can feel eyes boring into her back as she leaves.

(But -

the plane is delayed for one and half hours because of rain.

No one comes after her.)

.

She goes because she wants to fly.

She thinks she could just be falling instead.

.

She's not sure when the travelling stops being enough, when she begins to dream of Beck again, the image of him smiling floating on the back of her eyelids even when she wakes up. All she really knows is that she was in Detroit when someone asked if she wanted them to buy a drink, and she looks into brown eyes and whispers _yes_ (there's something else too, a cold bathroom door against her, tingles at her fingertips, her black lace bra being slid off her back).

Once again, she falls into a pattern, the routine managing to repeat itself without her consent. The motions are too mechanic, the tight shutting of her eyes so that she doesn't open them, desperately trying not to spoil the illusion; the way her nails dig into soft skin that's never quite as warm as Beck's, or the way lips smash against hers.

She leaves them, too, or they leave her. Most of the time, she doesn't even learn their names, never cares enough with the façade to ask them. All she likes is the rush of adrenaline that comes with sweaty skin pressed together, the prospect of consequences not dawning on her.

She dials Beck's numbers, hangs up on the first ring, and orders another drink. She doesn't even bother to put on another layer of lipstick - she's sick of stains.

.

"Why?" Is Cat's first question. She doesn't answer, just plays with her lighter and watches as the flame flickers and fades (and she thinks that maybe, that's what she's become: an echo of a bang, the dying embers of a spark she once was).

"Because I felt like it," she answers finally. "I wanted to."

"You're killing him," Cat says simply. This is the most serious she's ever heard her - there's no high pitched giggle, no smile in her voice. Just hard edged facts. She swallows hard.

"I miss you," says Cat after a long pause. "We all do. Come back. Please?" She sighs.

"No." Finally, she lights a cigarette, takes a deep breath and tries to calm her nerves with smoke filling her lungs.

"Why?" Cat complains. "Why did you even leave in the first place. Twice, now, Jade! Twice!"

"I just…I just couldn't do it anymore," she says, tapping the ash into the ash tray.

"Do what?"

"It's not of your business," she snaps.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Cat exclaims quickly. She sighs again, replying with an off-hand _nothing_, and waiting for her to fully calm down.

"Jade…" She dips her hand into the ash tray, tries to make patterns, but for once, it doesn't work.

"It felt to different," she says. "Not entirely right. There was warmth, and everything felt too relaxed, too lazy, and it just didn't feel like us, and, god, _fuck_, I don't know."

"That was love," Cat says. "That was you being in love, and you feeling safe, and you just _left it_." She taps her cigarette, lets out a tiny hiss as she accidentally burns herself on the cigarette, her fingers unconsciously starting to crush it.

"Maybe, I'm not ready for that," she says.

"But you are! Beck -"

She hangs up quickly, muttering _always the fucking optimist _under her breath, and gets up and walks away, leaving her cigarette smouldering on the table.

.

In Seattle, it rains for most of her stay, which is for four weeks. Yet, she never buys an umbrella, just stays in her hotel room and watches as the streams travel into the gutter, carrying leaves and twigs with them. When the headlights turn on in the night, she thinks that the city could also be pretty, even with dark storm clouds over head. She closes the curtains then, takes a sip from a bottle of straight vodka.

On her last day, she gets caught out in the rain. She's just a block away from her hotel when she sees it, a sodden scrap from a magazine that's been stepped on so many times that it's almost part of the pavement. The ink has almost completely bled out, but she can still make out the picture, can imagine the words underneath it.

She uses up the last of her money on buying a plane ticket and the full magazine. On her trip, she tears up the picture of Beck and his new girlfriend until it's a meaningless jigsaw of brown and black and blue. It doesn't make her feel any better.

.

He's out when she arrives at his apartment, and she's never felt more pathetic when she's sitting outside his door, reading the back of a cigarette packet and begging her legs to take her back. By the time he's come back, she's still there, but there's a pile of ash in front of her and all her cigarettes are stuffed into her jean pocket.

He barely blinks when he first sees her, just unlocks his door and helps her up, letting her inside without a word. She seats herself down on the lounge, puts her feet on his table, and wonders how when she got so stupid that she thought she could convince herself that it was like old times, like nothing had changed.

Looking at him from the corner of her eye, she seems him run a hand through his hair, before trying to light a cigarette, though he ends up throwing his lighter against the wall. She doesn't even jump. He sighs, and finally looks at her, only for her to stare at her feet, picking at the stray threads on his lounge.

"You can't keep doing this to me," he says.

"What's your new girlfriend like?" she asks, completely ignoring him. "She looks pretty, of course. They're your only type."

"Does it even matter?" he says, his voice tight. "And she wasn't my girlfriend." He doesn't elaborate. Sighing, he comes round to her, and crouches so that he's eye level. She still doesn't look at him.

"Are you going to leave again?" he asks her quietly. "Tell me right now, because I need to know. Either stay, or go, all right?" She hates how tired his voice sounds, how much older his eyes look. She wants to hold him, to go back and live their life together in his RV, make it simple again. She shakes his head.

"I can't," she says. "I ran out of money." He sits down cross-legged, like his legs just gave out, and rests his head against her legs.

"You always come back when you need me." She nods, raises her hand to touch him, but drops it again before he can see. He smiles at her sadly. "But never because you _want_ to come back. I'd like you to want me." He kisses her jeans, she can barely feel it.

"Still, at least you came back."

.

Her lipstick stain is still on the window, she notices. Every so often, she smiles at it, draws a love heart around it and whispers the words Beck and Jade, so that it means something.

She scolds herself then, for being so fucking sentimental and stupid.

(Secretly though, whenever it's a rainy day and the windows get all fogged up, she sits by it, watches the ghost of a heart appear, and smiles to herself.)

.

The first time she attempts to make cookies for Beck, her way of an apology, almost, she burns them until they're black because she forgets about them, and manages to burn her hand as well while trying to get them out. The second time, they're only light charred, though one of them was smoking. She gives up after that.

When Beck comes home from filming, she's on his bed, watching TV in one of his old flannel shirts and her underwear. He gives her a quick, slightly hesitant smile that she doesn't return, before sitting on the bed beside her. There's a small pause before,

"Did you make cookies?" He holds one up, while she just raises her eyebrow at him.

"Clearly, no," she answers. "They're burnt, by the way."

"I know," he says, giving her a warmer smile this time. "I like burnt cookies." She can't help but smile, particularly when he leans down and kisses her.

"You should," she answers later, tangled in his sheets. "They're better than the others."

He just gives her a knowing smile.

.

The next time they go on the red carpet together, Jade dyes her hair black and wears a black dress, trying to make everything black and white - simple. She smiles with Beck at the camera, kisses him on the cheek in front of everyone, tries to convince anybody, everybody, that they're fine now.

(Maybe.)

He holds her too tightly as they walk, imprinting his fingertips on her hip. She starts to remember what he feels like again, from his fingerprints to his lips - a warmth starts to settle in her stomach, and her breathing starts to speed up for no apparent reason at all.

"Relax," Beck says. She glances at him, and looks away quickly (IthinkIlikeyoualloveragain - _fuck_).

The award ceremony isn't very long, but she still manages to consume three glasses of champagne and the world has a fuzz at its edges. She has a vice grip on Beck's arm as she walks, her heels starting to slip on the gleaming floor. As he sits her down on a chair, she thinks she sees a glimpse of sad look. Her nails dig in, but just for a second.

Everything's a deliberately forgotten blur after that, but she remembers seeing her lipstick against an incredibly white collar, a giggle escape from her lips, and Beck glaring at her, a tight grip on her wrist. He's dragging her out, and she vaguely remembers that this is where he parked his car. Before she knows it, she's up against a brick wall, wincing when the jagged edges slam into her back.

"What the fuck, Jade?" he says, on the verge of shouting. He quickly looks around, checking for paparazzi, before returning back to her. She glares right back at him, shaking her hand out of his wrist.

"I -"

"You're scared, I know," he interrupts. "You've been scared for the past six years." She's silent, trying to look at him but he has his head down, and she doesn't know what to say, and she's pretty sure that none of this was ever meant to happen.

"I don't know what to do," she says finally.

"Make a decision," he suggests dryly. "Stop playing this stupid game of yours."

"Stay," she mutters.

"Only if you want to," he says. He sighs, lowers his head again.

"Can I try again?" she says weakly. "I want to, I like…_us_."

He nods, so she holds his hand.

.

She falls asleep on his shoulder on the drive back.

* * *

**Disclaimer: I do not own Victorious.  
**

* * *

A/N: Something this crap should not be this long. This is the result of writer's block, me not writing Beck/Jade in an eternity, and lets go mental and blame Valentine's Day as well. Anyway, review if you loved/hated it/have questions, etc.


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